All posts with tag: Awesome Tapes From Africa

Ethiopian keyboard maestro Hailu Mergia has held on tenaciously to his art and to his skills over the years since his move from Addis Ababa to Washington, D.C. in the ‘80s to escape the dictatorship of the Derg. Luckily for … Read more »

While winter has finally come to New York—vengefully, as if to make up for being so late—the cold weather can’t last forever. Someday the sun will be up for longer than 15 minutes, the leaves will return to the trees, … Read more »

Two things about Ghanaian gyil music are likely to grab a first-time listener: the deep, resonant buzz of the bass notes, and the polyrhythmic virtuosity—the right-hand/left-hand limb independence of master players. The Awesome Tapes From Africa label is known for … Read more »

Sing hallelujah! Awesome Tapes from Africa, the blog/record label/purveyor of the finest obscure African cassettes, has put together a new mix of old-school Nigerian gospel, along with tracks from some secular Nigerian and South African cassettes that label owner Brian … Read more »

Over the past decade, the blog-then-label Awesome Tapes from Africa has been at the forefront of a new wave of “world” labels, one that attempts to better reflect the messy complexity of musical cultures across the African continent. Leaving questions … Read more »